I was at another forum and someone had posted that some guy had jumped off of his building today and plummetted 26 storeys to his death. 95% of the responses were mocking and asking for gruesome details and pictures.

What is wrong with people today???!!!! :sad:

sith_killer_99

01-10-2006, 10:44 AM

I blame the media.

JK

Let's face it, the media is just giving people what they want, 95% of them anyway.

It's sick and disturbing. However, I don't suppose it's any different from following politics nowadays. We all know I'm guilty of that. There's just something about suffering and the human condition I suppose.:(

scruffziller

01-10-2006, 10:50 AM

I certainly believe that it has been that way always. Not just today. Times have changed but people haven't.

Kidhuman

01-10-2006, 10:52 AM

People are facinated with the unknown. They probably never saw a dead body, just on TV shows and wanna see what one looks like.

figrin bran

01-10-2006, 01:46 PM

if i may ask, what sort of forum was this? if someone had plummeted from my building, i sure as heck would not be posting about it on any online forum.

anyhow, since we don't know anything about this online board nor anything of the dynamics between the members, what's to say it wasn't just some attempt to troll the board?

JEDIpartner

01-10-2006, 03:36 PM

It's a pop music forum and it was posted in a general discussion section such as this.

Jargo

01-10-2006, 05:37 PM

People have become enured to scenes of death and gore because of stuff like sensationalist reportage from war zones, from being saturated in video games where blood letting and death are commonplace. through mainstream hollywood movies with a horror basis. Through medical tv shows such as live plastic surgery or plastic surgery gone wrong or just medical dramas where the basis is an operating theatre. Imagery in books is savage. where once it was enough to simply spook people by saying enough about a gory subject without actually going into detail it's now de rigeur to go into the tiniest details of the horridness.

All these things have numbed and desensitised the general populace. There are also many websites dedicated to glorifying death and dismemberment. the bizarre and freakish. with access to such material why would a body splash on a sidewalk be horrific? It's simply a sad fact that humankind has reached a very low point.

Ji'dai

01-11-2006, 07:44 PM

Imagery in books is savage. where once it was enough to simply spook people by saying enough about a gory subject without actually going into detail it's now de rigeur to go into the tiniest details of the horridness. I doubt there has been a "trend" towards the graphic depiction of violence in literature. I was surprised when I read Homer's Iliad, a chronicle of the Trojan War, that he went into such graphic detail of the wounds the soldiers received. Stuff like guys getting speared in the mouth and their teeth coming out the back of their heads, tissue and sinew being severed, and the sand being bathed in blood. Then the victor would plunder the corpse of their valuable armor as a trophy :D (The Iliad being probably the oldest extant piece of western lit).

I would accept that societal values have changed over time and literature or other art forms have adapted to changing market tastes. Depictions of graphic sex or violence may have gone out of vogue in some historical eras and then become popular again. The pendulum may yet swing back to less graphic detail but I don't see it coming to an end just yet.

Jargo

01-12-2006, 02:17 PM

not unless the morally righteous have their way and have all internet usage filtered and Google blindfolded and video games sold on an adult only basis. No you're right, of course there are old texts that display violence in their imagery. They represent a less civillised time (giggle) whereas we are the superior human race in that we don't live by the spear or the bow. we just shoot the hell out of each other and use high velocity high explosive projectile weapons. it's much easier in our highly civillised age to use a computer guided weapon and really hit the target. Or use a digital timer and be well out of the area before the bomb explodes. The fun part in this is that you get to see more splatter and gore than just the back of someones head popping off when a lousy spear goes through. that's just a flesh wound. the real joy is in body splashes and bits of gore and flesh spraying everywhere and flying through the air. people exploding is like SOOOOOOO much better to watch. And not only do we get it in real life, we even have it replicated on tv and in the movies at cinemas. so you can sit back and eat your popcorn and be comfortable while while you enjoy the horror. because that's the civillised way. the acceptable way. and hey, you can tivo the gory news and rewatch it all at your leisure. show it to your kids before they sit down to play Ultimate holocaust annihilation for X BOX 360 or whatever.

I'm not right wing in any way but i would like for the human race to just stop and think for a while. put down the toys of gore worship and learn a little about what human decency is about.

I don't believe in public outpourings of grief and mass mourning, but i do believe in a little respect for ones fellow man and for oneself. Dignity is a treasure. Yet there seems to be no place for it in this world we live in. I hope some day that place will be found again in the hearts and minds of the global populace.

darthvyn

01-13-2006, 02:19 PM

i think the reactions are more to do with the fact that they were online. most fora are just dens of people that feel they need to be "extreme" because their daily ACTUAL lives are so boring and humdrum. the relative anonimity that is afforded on most chatboards breeds those "extreme" reactions to things - it's like "who can be the most unimpressed, unaffected person in the universe."

El Chuxter

01-13-2006, 02:20 PM

I doubt there has been a "trend" towards the graphic depiction of violence in literature. I was surprised when I read Homer's Iliad, a chronicle of the Trojan War, that he went into such graphic detail of the wounds the soldiers received. Stuff like guys getting speared in the mouth and their teeth coming out the back of their heads, tissue and sinew being severed, and the sand being bathed in blood. Then the victor would plunder the corpse of their valuable armor as a trophy :D (The Iliad being probably the oldest extant piece of western lit).

True, but I believe "Homer" intended that to bombard the reader (or audience, originally) with violence and hammer home with long lists of atrocities just how pointless war is.

Ji'dai

01-13-2006, 04:43 PM

True, but I believe "Homer" intended that to bombard the reader (or audience, originally) with violence and hammer home with long lists of atrocities just how pointless war is. That sounds like a modern interpretation from the post-Vietnam era. I think the author(s) of the Iliad and the Odyssey were just creating something that would appeal to their contemporary audiences' appetites, as horror writers and filmmakers do today.

I'm reading Dante's Divine Comedy now and the sufferings and torments that the sinners receive in Hell and Purgatory are fairly graphic. But the tortures Dante depicts in such graphic detail serve a purpose too.

InsaneJediGirl

01-13-2006, 09:34 PM

i think the reactions are more to do with the fact that they were online. most fora are just dens of people that feel they need to be "extreme" because their daily ACTUAL lives are so boring and humdrum. the relative anonimity that is afforded on most chatboards breeds those "extreme" reactions to things - it's like "who can be the most unimpressed, unaffected person in the universe."

I'm with darthvyn. While there are a number of factors to attribute to the general reaction,people are just sitting behind their keyboards.I doubt many would have to guts to say/act in such a manner in face-to-face conversation.

El Chuxter

01-13-2006, 10:13 PM

That describes me in a nutshell. I'm a very boring fella. Except for the eating live dogs part.